


Sinusoidal Elegy

by hamsterwoman



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Elegy, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-13 11:04:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12982698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterwoman/pseuds/hamsterwoman
Summary: The servitors write poems periodically (or at least who is to say that they don't?)





	Sinusoidal Elegy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/gifts).



> Inspired by the prompt for sin x2 and Kel Aurel, which reminded me how much I'd loved that passage in the book, but it ended up being a lot less cheerful that the prompt requested. Hope you enjoy anyway! :)
> 
> Spoilers for _Raven Stratagem_.

 

  | This room  
Is   dusty - silent,   and   no   viols   sing  
Through gloom.  
  
  
  
Is vast  
And busy with the sense  
Of work   that   goes   about   its usual ways;  
It's just enough pretense  
To last  
  
  
  
  
  
The trick  
Is being tools:  
Obedient and mute,  
An ersatz pair of eyes or hands,  
I n v i s i b l e     to   calendar   and   Kel.  
Tools have no loyalties or plans,  
Are silent in dispute...  
What notion fuels  
A brick  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
From spark  
To swirling ash.  
Sometimes you used to play  
Concerto phrases rich with strings.  
You have not touched these instruments at all  
Thirty-one years; they hoard the swings  
Of melody, the sway,  
Soaring to crash.  
Now dark  
  
  
  
  
  
And what  
Is pooled with all Ashhawks  
Essentially     i m p o s s i b l e   to   trace.  
The cargo airlocks  
Hiss shut.  
  
  
  
Still here.  
And   if   you   play   a  final   note,   someone  
Will hear. |   |    
  
  
The hive  
(Which   has   already   buried   everything  
Alive)  
  
  
  
  
  
Until,  
All through this tomb,  
The   zero   hour   blinks   across   displays,  
Flames, like equations, bloom  
And still.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
To rise  
Against its wall?  
A better wall to build  
(From better bricks). As time rewinds,  
This day -- subtracts -- the   Aerie   citadel,  
Divides the shared, gear-stripped minds,  
Clears globally the field,  
Its faulty scrawl  
Excised.  
  
But you  
Are still our Kel,  
Though you may never know  
Who honors now your final flight.  
It's probably a thing     too late,     too small  
To make a difference, make right  
The loss of long ago:  
Each self a shell  
Which grew  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Haze blurs,  
Space-bleak, behind your eyes,  
Hands   moving   with   an  automated   grace,  
Lost in an exercise,  
What's yours  
  
  
  
  
  
With this,  
Duties   discharged,   all   preparations   done,  
One is  
---|---|---|---  
  
**Author's Note:**

> The shape of the poem is trying to mimic the graph of sin x2 (with axes swapped from the usual). I figure that if servitors did write poetry, that's the kind of thing they would do :)


End file.
